


brother, let me be your shelter

by MaliciousVegetarian



Series: Geralt Whump Week 2020 [REUPLOAD] [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anti-Witcher Sentiments, Gen, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Ostracism, Violence, implied alcohol abuse by a minor oc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26705323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: When a town's hatred of witchers leaves Geralt in a dangerous position, help comes from an unexpected ally.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Lambert
Series: Geralt Whump Week 2020 [REUPLOAD] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943452
Comments: 7
Kudos: 92





	brother, let me be your shelter

**Author's Note:**

> Edit 9/28/2020 - This is a reupload of a previously posted fic. I deleted all my witcher fic during a Bad Brain Time, and am slowly replacing things.
> 
> Here we go! I'm really excited to start out Geralt Whump Week. A huge thank you to WingedQuill for looking this over for me. The title is from the song Brother by NEEDTOBREATHE  
> Warnings: violence, very mild gore, anti-witcher prejudice, implied alcohol abuse by a minor oc

Geralt’s not expecting problems from this contract. It’s fairly straightforward - there’s a griffin getting into herds on a tract of land owned by some lord, who lives miles away. The lord is the one who hired him, and honestly Geralt thinks he’s a prick, but work is work, and it’s someone Jaskier wants to avoid getting in the bad books of. He does feel bad for the griffin, and part of him is hoping he can manage to scare it off instead of killing it.

There’s a small town not far from the lord’s pastures, but Geralt decides to keep to the woods, setting up camps each night even as the weather starts to get cold. This far away from most civilization, the townspeople could either have very few anti witcher sentiments, or they could be overflowing with them. Geralt would rather not find out at the moment.

It feels odd, traveling alone. He’s grown used to having someone at his side, but Yennefer has mage obligations and Jaskier is visiting an old friend - the one who’d told Geralt about his current contract - and Geralt had insisted he not end it early. Geralt had managed by himself for decades, he’ll be fine for one hunt.

It’s lonely, sleeping by himself, though.

The griffin is easy enough to find. Whatever guards the lord has on his flock, they must have been doing a decent job. It’s half starved, and wild with it. Geralt plans the fight carefully, grounding the beast as soon as he can, then fighting. He manages to keep it from hitting him in the air. After that, things drag on, the two of them doing a complicated dance, mostly managing to avoid the other. Then, like music climbing to a crescendo at the end of a song, they hit each other at almost the exact same time. Geralt’s sword slips in under the griffin’s ribs, and one of the griffin’s feet comes down hard on Geralt’s shoulder, slicing deep gouges into it. Geralt yells out, half from the pain and half from the adrenaline of the fight.

The griffin wobbles backwards, clumsy steps shaking the earth, before collapsing in a heap. Geralt feels a moment of grief for it - it didn’t really deserved to die because some lord wanted more business opportunities. It had just been an animal trying to survive. Likely, the humans had been invaders in its territory.

However, Geralt has more immediate problems, namely the amount of blood coming from his shoulder. There are three deep gashes over his collarbone, and one running down the side of his shoulder. He can see bone. He can see multiple pieces of bone, in fact. He tries to move his hand, and only gets a weak twitch in response, along with an answering roar of pain. That’s not something that will heal right on it’s own.

He’d left his packs with Roach, and the fight has moved him a decent way from her, so he rips part of his shirt off and presses it to the wound as best he can, trying to stop the blood flow. Walking back is a daunting prospect.

Roach nickers to him when he returns. He reaches out a hand to stroke her nose before getting down to business - pulling the potions he needs out of his bag. He should really stop and clean the wound, but there isn’t a stream particularly close by.

There’s the town. It’s not more than an hour’s ride from here. From what he knows it’s unlikely to have a healer who can deal with this, but getting to the town and resting would give him the chance to heal enough to get to someone who can fix it. With the potions, he should be alright during the ride there, and he can maybe see if he can get a bath and clean himself properly.

The ride to the town is awful, Roach’s steps jarring the injury. They’d been made to practice riding one handed as trainees at Kaer Morhen, but he’s starting to get dizzy. The potions have mostly stopped the blood loss, but he’ll need time to recover from what’s already come out.

As soon as he gets to the main street of the town, he realizes there’s a problem. The villagers he sees in the streets mutter to each other, pull children closer to them, sneer. He knows it must be startling to have a witcher ride into town post battle, but he doesn’t think he looks that bad. He’s managed to use his cloak to cover the worst of the blood. He does have the black eyes afforded by the potions, which tend to be poorly received (unless you’re Jaskier, who reacts very positively), but he knows from experience how to tilt his head to avoid most of the stares.

He could turn around, ride back out into the woods, and care for himself there, like he used to do. But he wants a soft bed so badly, and a bath, and something to eat that he doesn’t have to hunt. Once he would have passed these off as luxuries, but since Yennefer and Jaskier entered his life he’s come around to letting himself have nice things.

There’s a small but well cared for building near the center of the town that seems the closest thing to an inn, although it’s probably more like a tavern with a few rooms. He ties Roach outside, deciding he’ll stable her after getting a room. That’ll make it easier if things go poorly.

He’s very aware of his own weakness, of the fact that he can barely move his left arm. He’s far from defenceless, but it’s not ideal. If the villagers got it into their heads to gang up on him . . .

When he opens the door to the inn, the chatter of patrons slowly drops off. The man behind the bar, who he assumes to be the innkeeper, is a tidy looking man in his fifties. There are several old men playing gwent in a corner, and a younger man who reeks of alcohol sitting alone at a table in the center of the room.

Geralt looks straight ahead as he walks into the room, not making eye contact with any of them. He focuses instead on standing tall, not letting his steps falter and reveal how badly injured he is. He can feel the prickle of their eyes on the back of his neck. He places a hand on the corner of the bar, trying to disguise how much he’s using it to hold himself up. “Do you have rooms to let?”

The innkeeper leans on his side of the bar, relaxed in a calculated way. “We do,” he says coolly. “None for the likes of you.”

Geralt has to fight himself to not let his disappointment and panic show. His control’s starting to fade, and he can’t let them know exactly how bad off he is.

“I’ve got plenty of coin,” he says. The lord may be a fool, but he was a fool who paid up front. “I’ll be here one night, and then I’ll leave this town.” He almost throws an insult on the end of that last bit, but it’s unwise.

“Guess you weren’t listening,” a new voice says. Geralt can tell from the slurring that it’s the young man. “Dalebor said there’s no room for your kind here.”

Geralt stiffens, but doesn’t let himself turn around. If he acknowledges the drunk, he’ll only grow bolder. The innkeeper notices, and grins dangerously. He opens a door at the side of the bar and walks into the main area, movements fluid and unworried. He’s not afraid of the witcher. Geralt backs up as the man comes closer, grabbing a chair behind him as the movement makes him dangerously lightheaded.

“Aww, look at it,” the innkeeper coos. “Backing up like a scared little animal. Where’s the mighty wolf now?” He reaches out and grabs Geralt’s medallion. Geralt stays perfectly still. If he moves his good hand, he’s pretty sure he’s going to lose his balance. Dalebor releases his medallion, but doesn’t retreat.

“In that case,” Geralt says, “I’ll take my business elsewhere.”

“You’ll do more than that,” the innkeeper snarls. “You’ll leave this town, witcher, and you won’t come back.”

Geralt looks at him for a long moment. He’s tired and dizzy, and his shoulder throbs. He just wants to lay down in his own bed, with Jaskier and Yennefer on either side of him, running their hands through his hair and whispering comforts to him. The thought of them almost brings tears to his eyes. Fuck, he must be worse off than he thought.

He moves slowly towards the door. He’s noticeably listing now, and he keeps having to grab furniture to stay moving.

Making it from the door to Roach feels impossible, but somehow he does it. He tries to mount three times, and when he falls the third time and lands on the bad shoulder, he gives up and, once the stabbing pain has receded a bit, decides to just walk.

It’s not an easy journey. His balance keeps abandoning him, and he only avoids falling by pitching himself into Roach’s side. After a few rounds of this, she’s clearly irritated with him. He pats her neck. “I’m sorry, girl.” The words don’t sound right, and he’s not sure if that’s the fault of his tongue or his ears.

The clearing he finds is not that far from the town, but outside of the gate. He’ll take what he can get. He begins untacking Roach, and gets as far as pulling the bridle over her ears before his vision grays out into rows of tiny hexagons, and then he’s lurching to the side, passed out before he hits the ground.

-

“Geralt?”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, pulling his armor off him. Through his shirt, the hand is white hot. He groans and tries to pull away, but they grip tighter. Someone’s muttering over him, but they seem far away. Are they talking to him? He hopes not.

There’s another hand on his back, trying to pull him up. He struggles against it, but the hands are too strong. They’re pulling at his shirt, tugging it off. “Fuck,” someone says loudly. “Fucking hell, you idiot, you let yourself get shredded.”

Geralt tries to shake his head, even though he’s not sure what he’s protesting. There’s pressure against his shoulder, and it hurts, but the hurt is strange and distant. He’s not sure how long it lasts, but when it’s over his good hand is grabbed and guided to his shoulder. “Hold that in place. Fuck, you’re freezing.”

He’s not cold, though.

They’re pulling his hand away from the shoulder now, and he tries to keep it there, like he was told. There’s a frustrated exhale. “Come on, you can move it now.”

More pressure, more hurt, and then something heavy is draped over him. He squirms under it. “Just stay there, you stubborn ass,” they say. He hears them moving nearby, the rustle of fabric, and tries to turn his head to see, but the motion sends a bright flair of pain across his shoulder and up his neck. He thinks he whimpers, but he’s not sure.

Roach. That’s what he’s forgetting, he needs to make sure Roach is alright. He needs to get up and take care of her. But when he tries to, everything goes fuzzy and sharp and sort of sideways, and then there’s a hand catching him, pushing him back down. “What the hell are you doing? Stay here.”

“Roach,” Geralt says. There’s another frustrated groan.

“Your horse is fine, Geralt, I promise. I untacked her and tied her up, and I’ll do the rest when you’re not dying, okay?”

The voice is familiar now, but it still has to filter through the cloudiness in his head. “Lambert?”

“Yeah, it’s me. C’mon, sit up for me. I don’t want to have to haul your heavy ass around.”

Geralt follows directions. He almost pitches over as he does, but catches himself on the arm held out to him. Then he’s allowed to sink down onto something soft. The heavy blanket is returned.

Geralt floats for a few minutes, feeling more comfortable than he can currently imagine he’s ever felt. He’s not entirely sure what;s going on or where he is, but not particularly worried about it. Then the blankets are pulled back and something large and very hot is tossed in. Geralt pulls back, certain he’ll be burned.

“There you go,” Lambert says, sounding pleased with himself. “I’m going to get the horses taken care of, and then I’ll be back.”

By the time he comes back, Geralt is shivering violently. The motion jars his shoulder, pulling at torn muscles and tendons, until the whole side of his body is consumed with pain. With his good hand, he pulls the hot object closer to him. It’s something hard, maybe a rock, covered in hide.

When Lambert comes back, he barely pauses before pulling back the covers and climbing in next to Geralt.

“‘M not letting you hog my only warm blanket,” Lambert mutters. “That’s the only reason I’m in here, alright?”

Geralt just burrows into the warmth, and is asleep within minutes.

-

He wakes up to pain, both from his shoulder and the entire rest of his body, that terrible stiff day-after pain. He groans, and tries to resettle himself in the blankets, as if that’ll make everything better. Next to him, Lambert grumbles something unintelligible, and it takes Geralt a moment to remember why his brother is here.

The events of last night are covered in a thick haze in his memory, a jumbled collection of sensations that he has to sort through and piece together. He’s actually not sure what his brother’s doing in this area, but he’s very glad he was here.

When Geralt sticks his head out from under the blankets, the air is bitter cold. There’s a fire in the center of the clearing, which has died down to a smolder. The sun hasn’t hit the horizon, but the sky is already lightening. Roach is standing near a large oak tree, her nose almost touching that of Lambert’s roan gelding. He’s not sure how long he lays there, taking in the day, both in too much pain and too comfortable to move.

Finally Lambert stirs, then pushes himself up on one arm, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “You awake?”

“Have been for a while. You sleep in this late when you’re on a hunt?”

He can almost hear Lambert roll his eyes. The younger witcher pulls the covers down, and Geralt grumbles, grabbing them back. He hisses at the movement, and Lambert turns a critical eye on him.

“You sore?”

“Griffin put half its weight on my shoulder, what do you think?”

Lambert raises an eyebrow. “A griffin? I’d ask if you were stealing my contracts again if I hadn’t already killed mine.”

“Might have been a pair, or siblings. Or it could just be two griffins, this is good territory for them.”

“It is.”

There’s a long pause, and Geralt can feel the tension of unsaid words. “What were you doing half dead in a clearing three hundred feet from a town?” The edge in his voice tells Geralt that he already knows.

Geralt barely manages to stop himself from shrugging. “The town wasn’t friendly to witchers.”

Lambert makes an angry sound deep in his throat. “That’s shit,” he says. “I fucking hate humans.”

Geralt could point out that he knows several humans that Lambert actually likes, but he understands the basic point. “I know.”

One of Lambert’s hands clamps down on Geralt’s uninjured shoulder. “It’s shit that they did that to you, alright? It’s absolute garbage. You don’t deserve that.”

Once, the words would have passed through Geralt without really sticking. They would have stood no chance when weighed against years worth of insults. But lately, something’s started to shift. He thinks of Jaskier and Yenn, safe at home waiting for him, and how angry they’ll be on his behalf. “I know,” he says.

“Good,” Lambert says.

“C’mere,” Geralt tells him, lifting the edge of the blankets. His witcher’s instincts are telling him they need to get up, to do something, and he knows he’ll still need a skilled healer for his shoulder to be properly fixed, but he pushes all that aside. This morning, all he’s going to do is curl up beside his brother.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm leavemecryingdandelion on tumblr, come say hello!


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